How long have you been studying colds?

Well, I've been studying colds now for about 50 years.

This is Dr. Arnold Montau.

I'm Professor Emeritus, either public health or epidemiology, whichever one works best for you.

They're all real.

Yeah.

It's important to state that up front.

And for more than half century, he's been studying colds and other respiratory illnesses,

Dr. Montau has been at the University of Michigan.

He's credited with discoveries as far back as during the 1968 flu pandemic,

when he helped further our understanding of herd immunity with the findings that vaccinating school kids could reduce infection in entire communities.

So as we get deeper into the Northern Hemisphere's cold and flu season, which typically runs

from October through May with a peak in the winter months, we asked Dr. Montau, after 50 years, how much better

have we become at treating the most ubiquitous illness of them all, the common cold?

Basically, in terms of what we can do for them, it hasn't really changed. Great. I'm Meg Terrell,

CNN Medical Correspondent, filling in this week for Dr. Sanjay Gupta, to ask the question, why haven't we cured the common cold?

And will we ever? This is chasing life.

The average person has two to four colds a year, and more if you're a kid, up to 10 on average.

And they're not just annoying and uncomfortable.

They also cause adults to miss work and kids to miss school, which causes adults to miss work.

All this adds up to an estimated $40 billion economic impact each year in the U.S.

As of a study published in 2003,

...